2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The opening is very vague in terms of
the story: the entire thing is an
ambiguous metaphor. Most
noticeably, the main characteristic is
the flowing black liquid (it looks like
ink, however it could also be petrol).
It’s everywhere, uncontrolled and
coming into contact with lots of
different things – it is shown to drown a
screaming man, flow through the keys
on a keyboard, and drench a person’s
head, for example. The common aspect
of the imagery is death. At one
point, the liquid is set on fire, and we
are shown the image of a flaming bird of
some sort, most likely a phoenix. After
this image is shown, life begins to
emerge, and the people in the dark
begin to die, one after another.
3. Black Swan
The opening of Black Swan is very
mysterious, since it only shows
black pastel being used on a page.
In this opening sequence, it initially
starts off as a very calm opening,
but as the music picks up, so does
the speed of the drawing, and also
the ferocity of it, shown in the fact
that the pastel breaks, over and
over again, until finally, at the end,
we hear the smashing of glass, and
are shown the finished drawing of a
black swan. The scene could be
seen as a metaphor for the swan,
which has caused much damage
just by coming into creation.
4. The Social Network
At the very beginning of the
film, Mark is dumped by his
girlfriend Erica – unlike other
films, this one starts off with a
seemingly irrelevant scene. Instead
of using metaphors, the character
of Mark is shown to be very precise
and pedantic, to the point where he
is annoyed with a vague phrase said
in context. This results in his
girlfriend leaving him on the
spot, and thus begins the story with
a relatively commonplace event.
Instead of trying to create a tense
atmosphere, the first scene simply
introduces the characters.
